Microwave passive repeaters



March 31, 1959 w. C.'JAKES, JR 2,330,310

MICROWAVE PASSIVE REPEATERS Filed Dec. 31. 1955 5 Sheets-Sheet 1 lNl/ENTOR W. C. JAKES,JR.

March 31, 1959 w, c, JAKES, JR 2,880,310

MICROWAVE PASSIVE REPEATERS Filed Dec. 31, 1953 5 SheGtS SheQt 2 FIG. 3

REFLECTED RAY INCIDENT RAY //v l/EN TOR W. 6. JA KES, JR.

March 31, 1959 w. c. JAKES, JR 2,830,310 7 MICROWAVE PASSIVE REPEATERS Filed Dec. :51, 1955 5 Sheets-Sheet 3 FIG. 4A

'0 4.4 lea-0c FIG. 5

ATTORNE Y March 31,- 1959 w. c. JAKES, JR 2,880,310

MICROWAVE PASSIVE REPEATERS Filed Dec. 31, 1953 s Sheets-Sheet 4.

FIG 6A F/G.6B

/N VE N TOR A TTORNEY March 31, 1959 w. c. JAKES, 'JR

MICROWAVE PASSIVE REPEATERS Filed Dec. 31, 1953 FIG. 7A

TRANSMISSION Loss IIO FIG. 8

EQUATWDN 8 r, KMC

FIG. 9

REFLECTOR 5 Sheets-Sheet 5 FIG. 7B

5O lOO I50 200 INVENTOR W. c. JAKE $,JR.

BYW

MICROWAVE PAS SIVE REPEATERS William C. Jake s, Ira-Red Bank, N.J., assignor to Bell; Telephone Laboratories, Incorporated, New York, N.Y., a. corporation of New. York Application December 31, 1953, SerialNo. 401,652

1 Claim. (Cl. 250,-15)

Thisinvention relates to microwave radio relay'transmission systems, and, more particularly, to microwave repeaters foruse in such transmission systems.

In microwave radio relay systems, due to the propagation characteristics of the high frequency waves involved, it is necessary to locate the system'components, namely; the transmitters, repeaters, and receivers, along line-ofsight paths in order to insure low-loss transmission. As frequently occurs, due to terrain characteristics in many locales, the normal line of sightlocation for one or more of the system components is in a virtually inaccessible place, resulting in abnormally expensive installation and' maintenance costs. To obviate this difliculty, a genus o repeatershas been created which operates upon principles of waverefle'ction. Such repeaters, of the type shown and" described in United States Patent 1,939,345, F. Gerth et al., December 12, 1933, are known as passive repeaters inasmuch as they do not. require power to pet? form their operations. Once they have been properly installed, these repeaters require practically no maintenanceandhave been found in practiceto be remarkably efficientin operation. Thepresentinvention, in one of its more important aspects, relates to theimprovement in thistype of passive repeater. o

The use of'passive repeaters has quite oftenbeen restricted due to the difiiculty'oflocating the, receiver equipment in an easily accessible place which is favorably located with respect to a proper site forthe passive repeater. One important consideration has been-thetransfer angle involved, which is here defined as the angle through which the transmitted beam", or beam incident uponthe repeater must be'rotated in orderto'be directedupon a line ofsightpath' to the'next repeater, or receiver, as the case'rnay be. In the case where a plane mirror used as the passive repeater, the area of the mirror is inversely proportional to thesize of the transfer angle inasmuch as theelfective area of the mirror is' the projectionof themirror in a plane normal to the incident or reflected ray. Thus, in those cases where convenience of location dictates a small transfer angle, the actual mirror size is necessarily quite large, resulting in increased expense, greater difiiculty of installation, and more ineificientop oration due to the increased eifect' of wind and-weather on the mirror.

Itis object of this invention to provide a passive 'repeater; the area of which may be madesmall for small values of transfer angle.

A major deterrent to achieving eflicient line ofsight propagation of microwaves over longdistances has been the phenomenonv of bending of the radio beam. This bending is, in general, attributable to. variations in the retraetive index of the earths atmosphere. The effect of this bending in a microwave radio relay system is to change the; angle of arrival of the beam incident on therepeater or receiver. In the. caseof a passive repeater, this change in the angle of incidence can result ingreatly increased 2,880,316 Patented Mar. 31, 1959 ice 2: loss of signal, especially where the repeater is at great distance from both the transmitter and receiver, or next repeater.

It is, therefore, a furtherobjectof this invention to provide. a passive repeater which will minimize signal losses due to anomalous bending of the beam.

These and other objects and advantages, as well as the nature of the present invention will become more fully apparent upon consideration of the various illustrative embodiments described in detail in the following descrip tion, to be read in conjunction with the drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of the principal embodiment of the invention, showing a transmitter, a receiver; and a passive repeater. located therebetween;

Fig. 2 is a plan view of a typical microwave radio relay link using two passive repeaters of the typeembodying the present invention, showing how undesirable terrain characteristics are overcome;

Fig. 3- is a diagrammatic view of the passive repeater of the present invention in its simplest form, showing the more important dimensions which are to beconsidered;

Fig. 4A is a diagrammatic view of a single mirror passive repeater of a type well'known in the art;

Fig. 4B is a diagrammatic view of a passive repeater embodying the present invention;

Fig. 4Cis' a graph of length versus transfer angle for,

the'repeaters of '4A and 4B;

Fig. 5 is a graph of the separation of the mirrors of the: present invention for'difierent values of beam incidence angle and transfer'angle;

Fig. 6A is a diagrammatic elevation view-of'a system embodying the present invention, showing typical beam deviation in the vertical plane;

Fig. 6B is a diagrammatic plan view of a system embodying the present invention, showing beam deviation in. the, horizontal plane;

Figs. 7A, 7 B, and 7C are curves showing theresultsof ananalysis of beam bending in Figs; 6A and 6B;

Fig. 8 is a graph showing. further. results of beam b.ending" in Figs. 6A and 6B; and

Fig. 9 shows one modification of a repeater mirror. to overcome losses duetto beam bending.

single mirror of the known types of'passiv'e'repeatersiis replaced by two mirrors, so closely situated to each other that the microwave beam between them is, forall practi: cal purposes, collimated. 'That is, while a microwave beam from a point source is conical, the spacing between the'mirrors is so small relative to their sizes that the conical expansion of the beam and loss due to diifraction effects are negligible between the mirrors. This arrangement of the mirrors permits great flexibility so.that practieally any location becomes suitable as a site for the re-- peater.

Turning now to the drawings, there is shown in Fig. I a. microwave radio relay link having a transmitter 11', a passive repeater 12, and areceiver 13. Transmitter 11 and receiver 13 may be of any well-known typecommonly used in long distancemicrowave communication which is capable of transmittingand receiving amicrt wave beam. Repeater 12 comprises a first plane mirror 14 for receiving the transmitted beam from the transmitter 11 and reflecting it to a secondplane mirror 16, which in turn reflects the beam toward receiver 13. The mirrors 14and 16 may be of any suitable material which gives low loss reflection of the microwave beam. In the embodiment shown in Fig. 1, the mirrors-aremade ofv tEQrfQOt square flat sections of conductive material. It is essential to efiicient'performance. of the mirrors that they be rigidly mounted. To this end, suitably rigid bracedsupports 17 mounted on concrete blocks 18am usedtosupport themirrors. It is to be understood that any type of support which afiords the necessary rigidity might be used, that shown here being merely by way of example. In locales where there are prevailing winds, it might be feasible to perforate the mirror surfaces with numerous pin-holes to minimize the efiect of the wind.

Theoretical discussion The transmission loss between two antennae is given by the formula where:

P =power transmitted P =pwer received A A =efiective areas of the two antennae 7\=free space wavelength d=separation between antennae (path length).

This formula is accurate generally for cases where d is of a magnitude suflicient to give a loss of eight decibels or more. Inasmuch as the values of d contemplated in this invention are equal to or greater than this magnitude, Formula 1 is sufficiently accurate for purposes of this analysis. In Fig. 2 is shown a typical installation having a transmitting antenna 19 which has an effective area A a .first passive repeater 21 having an effective or projected area in both directions A and separated from the transmitting antenna by a distance a a. second passive repeater 22 having an eflfective or projected area in both directions A and separated from the repeater 21 by a distance d and a receiving antenna 23 having an eifective area A and separated from the repeater 22 by a distance d The transmission loss Over the arrangement of Fig. 2 becomes 2. l 2 3) P A A A A It will be seen in Formula 2 that the transmission losses may be minimized by making the projected areas A and A large. There are certain geometrical considerations, however, which lead to repeater designs having the least reflector surface for a given transfer angle or the least separation between mirrors, for installations where space is a prime fact-or. Referring to Fig. 3, wherein is shown a passive repeater embodying the present invention, the following qualities are necessary to consider:

x=the projected length of each mirror (taken to be equal) a=the transfer angle 1 l =the actual length of each mirror 0=the angle of incidence at the first mirror h=the mirror separation, measured between their centers L=the length of a single mirror repeater equivalent to a double mirror system.

Assuming, for purposes of analysis, that the transfer angle a and the desired project length x are given, then the variations of [H4 and h with 0 are studied, the design here chosen being such that the mirrors are as close together as possible, that is, the line AB in Fig. 3 makes an angle u-with the incident ray. Fig. 40 shows the variation of. total mirror length, l +l with!) for the repeater of Figs. 3 or 4B, together with the length L of the single mirror of Fig. 4A for comparison. An inspection of the curves of Fig. 4C reveals that there are certain values of the angle 6 which, for a given value of the angle a, result in a total length, l +l of the double mirror arrangement which is less than the length L of a single mirror. For example, if a is 35 l +l is less than L for all values of 0 from 0 to 60. This decrease in the required length results in not only a saving in cost of materials and construction, but also reduces materially thedeleterious effects of wind and weather.

Fig. shows the variations-in mirror separation for changes in the angles a and 0. It can be seen that for l 24 and receiving antenna 26 is then a given a there is a value of 0 for which the mirror separation h is a minimum. Thus, using the values of the previous example, where it was shown that for an a of 35, 0 could vary between 0 and 60, Fig. 5 shows that a 0 of approximately 52 will give the minimum spacing h. The minimum spacing results in a decrease in the necessary size of the repeater site, which permits a greater freedom in choosing an adequate site.

As is frequently the case in microwave radio relay transmission, anomalous tropospheric bending may occur at certain times, resulting-in increases in signal losses over the normal losses. This phenomenon places certain limitations on the maximum size of passive repeaters. In Figs. 6A and 6B there are shown a transmitting antenna 24, a receiving antenna 26, and a double mirror passive repeater 27, having a first mirror 28 and a second mirror 29. A distance d separates antenna 24 from repeater 27, and a distance d separates repeater 27 from antenna 26. Inorder to facilitate a study of anomalous bending and its effect on repeater size, d and d are each taken as equal to thirty miles. This distance represents the nearly maximum line of sight distance obtainable, andthere is ample data available on the bending phenomenon over this distance. The data here used was taken from Measurement of the Angle of Arrival of Microwaves by W. M. Sharpless, Proceedings of I.R.E., November 1946, page 837, and Further Observations of the Angle of Arrival of Microwaves by A. B. Crawford and W. M. Sharpless, Proceedings of I.R.E., November 1946, page 845. In those articles, the maximum vertical angle-of-arrival deviation fora direct ray was found to be approximately +0.45 over a thirty-mile path. Deviation in the horizontal angle-of-arrival i8 here taken as $0.05", which, while not the maximum deviation observed, is sufiiciently realistic for this analysis. It is further assumed that the bending is symmetrical at both ends of the thirty-mile path, which represents the worst case. Thus, Figs. 6A and 68 represent the worst case of ray bending in the vertical and horizontal planes respectively which it is feasible to consider. Antennae 24 and 26 are each oriented 0.1 above the line of sight path, as best seen in Fig. 6A, since the bending seems to be more frequent for positive angles.

In order' to calculate the effect of bending on system performance, the radiation patterns of the various elements of the system must be known. Each antenna, which,in the example here shown, is a paraboloid, when considered as a transmitter, produces a maximum field intensity at 6=0, where 9 is the angle measured from the paraboloid axis, i.e., normal to the aperture. For purposes of analysis, this value of field intensity is taken as one. The radiation pattern of the transmitting antenna written P(9), where P(9=0)=l. It is assumed that the radiation pattern has circular symmetry. The radiation pattern of the repeater 27 is defined in a similar way and is written as M(9) where M(9=0)=1. M (9) will refer to the vertical plane pattern, and M (9) to the horizontal plane pattern. Considering first the transmission between antenna 24 and repeater 27 over the distance d we vassume the worst bending condition, that is, the signal leaves antenna 24 and arrives at repeater 27 at an angle of 0.45 up from the horizontal, and deviates 0.05 in the horizontal plane. If P is the power radiated and P is the power arriving at the repeater, the transmission loss becomes where H is the height of the repeater, W its projected width, and S is the paraboloid diameter. The factor 0.6 in the denominator of the first term on the right arises from the fact that the effective area of the paraboloid is only'sixty percent of its actual area.

V 2 880310: I 5:; 6 Dueto'the: facttltha't; we have.azcollimated-beamt he,- rection: factor neededisthe one accounting fomthepeih tween mirrors 28 and 29, anchthe; effective area; of a manent upward tilt of the paraboloids of 0.1 degree, and;

mirror is one hundred percent,, P will be the power rethe transmission loss for the ;values previously noted then radiated therepeater. Inasmuch asthe plane wave becomes:

front of t e incident. wave was. tilted downwards at an 5 angle of 0.45 degree upon arrival at the repeater, and LT- 35'640 log A (m) for the worstcase, the signal'path leaves the repeater at It Will be Seen from eempaliseh 0f Equatlehs 9 and an angle of 0.45 degree up the repeater, vertic l dithat the worst bending case adds a loss of 14.3 decibels ation pattern factor is calculated. for an angle of 0.9 for the Optimum dimensions as Shown in F g degree. In. the same way the horizontal radiation factor 10 and Equations 9 d Plotted 1h 8 as a must be calculated for an angle of 0.1 degree. instead function of q e y o 2 me 0. c-

of 0.05 degree. At the receiving paraboloid the situ- While the example here Shown PIi single ation will be the same as atthe transmitting paraboloid. peater located pp t y y w n t e-t a s- Letting P be the power received by the last, paraboloid, mitting and receivingantennae and ze n er ngle the transmission loss from the repeaterto: the receiver is is also involved, it is to be. un OQ h pree ding f 2 h d 1 1 1 1 (4) Ps r [P(0.35)] [P(0.05)] [M (0.9")] [M ;(0.l)]

and the total transmission loss,

P analysis is valid for a plurality of repeaters and for trans- 5: fer angles not equal to zero. It can be shown that as Q: m 1 1 1 1 (5) P3 [P(0.35)]4 [P 0.05 1 [Mv(0.9) 1 [MH(0.1)]

The total decibel loss is the repeater is moved closer to one or the other of the d ,5' antennae the ratio of the transmission loss with the re- 14:40 hi; X 10% [X (0050)}, (0350)] peater thus off centered to that with it centered as shown H W in Figs. 6A and 6B is: -2o 10 [M 0.9 1-2010 M o.1 1 6.6

g X Y( g A H( a (d(;zi2)

11 where )t has been divided through so that all lengths may Where d1+d2 2d be expressed in wave lengths. From this it can be seen that as either d or d decreases 8 there will be a gain over the centered case. If a single R log [P (0.05)P(0.35)] repeater is used, the effect of this decrease in loss is A i 40 nullified by the resulting increase in loss over the longer path under anomalous propagation conditions.

Up to now we have considered the case where the repeater consists of plane reflecting mirrors, which give W g[ n( a uniform amplitude distribution over their radiating (7) surface. In some cases it is possible to decrease the Equation 6 then b losses due to beam bending for a reflector of a given d size by modifying the amplitude distribution of the mir- L =40 log +6.6 (Rs+RH+R (8) ror surface. Fig. 9 shows one method by which beam broadening may be accomplished. The plane surface The reduction terms s: Hr w Will, in g of the mirror is loaded with a suitable lossy or resistive be positive numhel's and h n willi to reduce the material having a concave surface. The effect of this total Physwelly y act as follows: as the llheal loading is to change the amplitude distribution of the dimension of a radiator is increased the linear factor in mirror f unifo throughout to a cosine taper. It the term will increase, since a larger antenna in general i b i that any desired amplitude distribution may has larger gaihon the Other hand, the Pattern factors be obtained by proper choice of loading materials and will decrease, because as the linear dimension increases, proper shaping the beam width of the main lobe of the radiation pat- I ll cases, i i understood h h fo oi ten! decreases 50 that a y leaving at 035 degree 03 rangements are simply illustrative of a few of the specific the axis will be farther down on the main lobe. This embodiments which represent applications of the i indicates that each reduction term should have a maxii l f h present invention Numerous other arrangemllm- In g and 7c, s H and w have ments can be readily devised in accordance with these been plotted as a function of size for different field disprinciples by th kill d in the art without departing trihutions. For the case of the ten decibel square law f th spirit a d scope of the invention. tapered aperture field of the paraboloid and uniform dis- Wh t i cl im d is; tribution at the repeater the optimum sizes A microwave radio relay transmission system having S H W in combination, a transmitter and antenna for transmit- -=125 =30 and -=300 ting a microwave beam, a receiver and antenna for receiving said beam, and a repeater station between said are Ohtemed and s decibels; RH=26-1 declbelF transmitter and receiver, said repeater station comprising and w= decibelswhen these valuFs are Substl' a first microwave reflector for receiving said beam and tuted into Equation 8 and 1= 2= mlles, the total reflecting it, and a second microwave reflector for receivloss is! 0 ing the reflected beam from said first reflector and reflectr= g 111 metefe) ing it in a predetermined direction to said receiving This represents the minimum loss obtainable for this antenna, the diameter of the sending and receiving ancase tennnae, the projected width of the repeater reflectors;

Where an anomalous bending is absent the only cor- 75 and the height of the repeater reflectors being such as to maximize the sum of the loss reduction factors given y R3= 401o [$1 001 092 7 Rw=20 log [:ME(0)] R =20 log [IXIMVUD] where S is the diameter of the sending and receiving antennae, W is the projected width of the repeater, where H is the height of the repeater,. where P(0 P(0 M 40), and M (0) are, respectively, expressions of the radiation patterns of the sending antenna, the receiving antenna, the repeaterin the horizontal plane, and the repeater in the vertical plane.

References cira in the file of this patent 7 OTHER REFERENCES Indirect Microwave Relay System, by R. R. Wake 15 man, Tele-Tech'Magazine for September 1948, pp. 42,

43 and 106. 

